The opinion of the court was delivered by: Robert P. Patterson, Jr., District Judge.

OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff Carlos Soba (Soba) has applied, pursuant to
42 U.S.C. § 1988, for attorneys' fees in the amount of $251,768.40 and
disbursements in the amount of $13,063.51 based on his having
received a jury award of $60,000 against defendants McComiskey
and O'Brien, members of the Police Department of the City of New
York, for excessive use of force in effecting his arrest for an
armed robbery conducted a few minutes before the arrest.

For the reasons that follow, the motion is granted to the
extent of $201,202.00 for attorneys' fees and $11,563.51 in
disbursements.

In 1983, Soba, an inmate in custody of the Department of
Correctional Services of the State of New York, filed this
action, pro se, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several
police officers, the Police Department of the City of New York,
and the City of New York, based on six wounds he received at or
around the time of his arrest on March 12, 1982 for an armed
robbery of a bar and grill in Brooklyn, which had occurred
several minutes earlier. Soba was carrying a sawed-off shotgun at
the time of arrest with which, defendants maintained, he was
threatening the health and safety of the defendants, which Soba
denied.

On April 27, 1989, the defendants filed a motion for summary
judgment. Pursuant to stipulations filed by the parties, the
plaintiff's time to respond was adjourned to June 13, 1989,
August 3, 1989, October 18, 1989, December 15, 1989, and February
15, 1990.*fn1 Plaintiff's opposing papers were filed on February
15, 1990; defendants' reply papers were filed April 11, 1990. On
or about May 8, 1990 the Court granted the motion for summary
judgment as to defendants Blackwell, Langan, Police Department
and City of New York with consent of plaintiff, but denied the
motion for summary judgment as to defendants McGoey, McComiskey
and O'Brien, on the grounds that issues of fact remained to be
decided by a jury with respect to the reasonable use of force
under the circumstances claimed by plaintiff, and set the matter
down for an early trial. The Court directed that each side bear
its own costs. Defendants then moved for a stay of trial pending
appeal of the Court's denial of the motion for summary judgment.
The Court rejected this motion by order dated June 18, 1990 and
set the matter down for trial in August 1990. On June 29, 1990,
the defendants filed a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit of
Appeals and applied to this Court for a stay of trial pending
appeal, which request was denied on July 17, 1990.

Thereafter, plaintiff's counsel attempted to settle the case
with counsel for the defense but those overtures were rebuffed by
defendants who refused to make any offer of settlement.

Subsequent to the trial and verdict on August 1-3, 1990, the
defendants renewed their motions for a directed verdict and moved
for judgment notwithstanding verdict, pursuant to Rule 50(b) of
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for a new trial pursuant
to Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The
plaintiff's counsel opposed these motions and on October 17,
1990, the Court denied the motions. See Soba v. McGoey,
748 F. Supp. 227 (S.D.N.Y. 1990). This application for attorneys' fees
followed on November 16, 1990.

Defendants have filed opposition to the plaintiff's application
on the grounds (1) it is grossly excessive and duplicative,
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d
40 (1983) (unreasonably expended hours are not compensable), (2)
it fails to reflect the limited success achieved by the
litigation, (3) the rates requested are not shown to be
prevailing rates, (4) no enhancement is appropriate for this
case, and (5) the disbursements are excessive.

Plaintiff filed a reply affidavit which, although otherwise
contesting defendants' claims, conceded inadvertent errors in the
inclusion of certain time charges as compensable in its
application for fees. Accordingly, it reduced its total for fees
and disbursements to $261,345.91.

The defendants base their claim of "patently excessive and
entirely unreasonable" fees on a stage by stage analysis of the
litigation aimed at showing an unreasonable number of time
charges were expended to accomplish the tasks involved. This
approach is an oversimplification of the complexities of a
representation of a pro se client, particularly one who has only
a third-grade education and does not have command of the English
language, as well as the difficulties of maintaining a constant
team of attorneys on behalf of a non-paying client over a
six-year period.

The Court's findings with respect to defendants' arguments that
the number of hours spent on various portions of the litigation
are unreasonable and excessive follow.

A. Pre-discovery phase: September 1984 through September 1988
(preparing and filing an amended complaint; opposition to
defendants' motion to dismiss)*fn3

For this period, defendants assert plaintiff's counsel charged
17 hours to prepare the amended complaint and 164.25 hours in
opposing the motion to dismiss, for a total of $25,807.00 in time
charges. Plaintiff responds that defendants failed to note many
other services which plaintiff's counsel performed, including
various telephone calls and correspondence with the Corporation
Counsel and with the plaintiff, three court conferences,
preparation of a sur-reply memorandum, preparation of a notice of
claim and a medical release and attempts to obtain police and
medical records of their client. When one takes into account that
the location of and linguistic abilities of the client, this time
is not deemed unreasonable. The Court does not, however, allow
the time charges prior to accepting the representation for review
of the pro se court file and conferences to determine whether to
accept representation
of the client totaling 2 hours and $140 in time charges.

In view of the extensive nature of the services rendered in
this phase, the Court does not find the hours expended in time
charges unreasonable.

C. Summary judgment phase: March 1989 through May 1990
(prepare 28-page memorandum in opposition to motion for
summary judgment and argument)

Defendants assert that for this phase plaintiff's counsel
charged 414.50 hours and $62,898.00 in time charges. Plaintiff
points out, however, that this time included, in addition to
review of the defendants' affidavit and memorandum in support of
the motion and argument of the motion, research and analysis of
cases cited by defendants and further research of other law on
the subject, research on the law of qualified immunity and on
liability of a municipality in conjunction therewith (as well as
time spent on a motion to amend the complaint which never was
filed), telephone conferences with the client who was refusing to
agree to dismissal of claims against certain defendants,
preparation of an internal memorandum on ethical issues in
representing a pro bono client and continuing to represent the
client, correspondence with the client in relation to dismissing
certain of the defendants from the action, and the preparation of
a stipulation of dismissal against certain defendants in the
action which defendants did not accept.

The defendants' position in opposition to this application
overlooks entirely the difficulty of pro bono representation of
an inarticulate convict located in northern New York State who
speaks broken English. Much time is spent, when such clients are
one's clients, which is unnecessary under other circumstances.
Nevertheless, in the Court's estimation, the charge of $62,898 is
too high in relation to the nature of the services performed and,
in view of the amount of time charged on certain matters, i.e.,
an apparently false start by an inexperienced associate and
summer associates and work required in part for the firm's
self-protection, the Court will not allow hourly charges for
Koloyanides of 15 hours, Hendricks of 13 hours, Nadler of 13
hours, Ezratty of 8.5 hours and Terner of 3.5 hours. The
remainder of the time charges are found to be reasonable.

The Court also finds that no further adjustment than a
reduction of $15,000, as provided in plaintiff's application of
attorneys' fees, is to be made for duplication of services
rendered. Defendants claim that the hours charged by plaintiff's
counsel are duplicative in that twenty-one different attorneys
and seventeen different paralegals charged time to this matter
over the course of the litigation. They also complain that
plaintiff's counsel has not provided a breakdown of its method of
calculation of duplication of time of $15,000. Defendant is
undoubtedly correct that if a fewer number of attorneys had
conducted the litigation, the total charges would have been
lower. Nevertheless, conflicting demands of clients are difficult
to balance, particularly when the requirements of paying clients
have to be balanced against those of pro bono clients. Here the
vast majority of the hours expended were by Brown, Koloyanides
and Ezratty. Those expended by the other attorneys were
considerably less. In view of the span of years involved in
connection with the litigation, the Court is reluctant to
question the total number of attorneys assigned to handle the
litigation or to second-guess assessments by a respected member
of the bar as to the amount of duplicative hours involved by his
firm in the representation.

Defendants also claim that the hourly rates charged by
plaintiff's counsel are not properly justified as reasonable
rates. In its reply papers, plaintiff's counsel set forth a
schedule of hourly rates published in the November 19, 1990 issue
of the National Law Journal showing the rates it charged are
comparable with other New York law firms of its approximate
size.*fn5 This schedule is not challenged. The Court finds the
hourly rates charged by plaintiff's counsel to be reasonable and
points out that the attorneys' hourly rates for those attorneys
earlier referred to as bearing the heavy burden were $150, $105
and $100, respectively.

The defendants point out that the record is devoid of any
indication the attorneys used by plaintiff in this action had any
civil rights litigation experience. If the Court had to rely on
such attorneys to handle the many pro se cases on its docket such
as this, the Court's backlog would be mammoth. In many cases
firms handling such cases on a pro bono basis are unsuccessful,
are not entitled to recover attorneys' fees and expenses and
suffer financially. When their client prevails, however, there is
no reason why they should not be paid for their services at
appropriate rates for the time required to handle the
representation in a highly professional manner.

Lastly, the Court does not find plaintiff's counsel's expenses
to be excessive.

*fn6 The medical expert witness fee will be allowed to plaintiff
as costs, since the expert's testimony was necessary in
establishing the plaintiff's claim. Coughenour v. Campbell Barge
Line, Inc., 388 F. Supp. 501, 506 (W.D.Pa. 1974). The witness was
a fact witness, not an opinion witness. The fee is not allowed as
part of the attorneys fee and expense award, however, in view of
the holding in West Virginia Univ. Hosp., Inc. v. Casey, ___
U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 1138, 113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

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